


There's A Reason I Want You And This Isn't It

by The_angel_that_fell



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, Distractions, Kink Negotiation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2018-11-29 23:31:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11451348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_angel_that_fell/pseuds/The_angel_that_fell
Summary: There is something strange between them. Sherlock always feels drawn to Moriarty, and his nemesis is always there, waiting. Like he was going to fall for him.Like he was going to love him.





	1. nightmares in my head, want you in my bed

"Sherlock," Moriarty purred. The detective put his hands in his pockets.

"Obviously. I suppose I can assume there is a reason why you wanted me here?"

"Oh, don't be so boring! I wanted to have some fun."

"Fun, meaning..."

Moriarty snapped his fingers and suddenly the darkened warehouse flooded with light, illuminating a body hanging from the ceiling and two people bound and gagged in the corner. Sherlock didn't even try to make a move. Obviously there were people outside and there would be no signal on his phone. He would expect nothing less.

"Look what I did, all for you! We're meant to be, Sherlock, accept it." The criminal winked and took a few steps forward, until his lips were almost brushing the detective's. "And is it me or is it _hot_ in here?" he breathed, warm air ghosting over Sherlock's lips.

"I won't-"

"Oh, you will. You will. For me, you'd do anything..." He made the final movement and kissed Sherlock soundly, a hand sliding into the dark curls to pull, almost painfully.

"Jim," Sherlock whispered. "Jim, I-"

 

"Wake up!"

His eyes snapped open. He was in his armchair. John leant over him. Behind him, Moriarty held a knife to his throat. Light glimmered off the blade like sunlight off calm water.

"Sherlock," John said. And then Moriarty pulled the knife in a swift motion across his throat and let him go and John crumpled to the floor.

"John!" Sherlock roared. "JOHN!"

"Oh, shut _up,_ will you?" Moriarty shouted, silencing him. He looked desperately into the man's limpid back eyes.

"Why?"

"Don't take it so personally," he shrugged casually, dropping the blade. "It's just another piece in the game. What will your counter-move be?"

" _This,"_ Sherlock snarled, grabbing the knife and bringing it up to Jim's throat.

"How disappointingly ordinary, Sherlock," he said, dragging out the syllables, tasting the name. "I warned you, remember? I told you I'd burn the _heart_ out of you."

"My heart is still here," he growled.

"Ah, but is it?" his nemesis asked, smiling, and placed a hand over Sherlock's heart, feeling the steady beat.

He couldn't kill him. Not even with John's corpse lying at his feet, he couldn't kill him. He was worthless. Utterly, utterly-

"Sherlock," Jim drawled. He had the height advantage standing. The detective stood up so Jim had to tilt his head slightly to look him in the eye and said,

"I have a heart. You, on the other hand, do not."

"I'm actually sort of hurt," he intoned darkly. "Just because I kill, doesn't mean I can't feel."

"Feel this," Sherlock said, and stabbed him in the stomach. Jim grinned maniacally.

"I missed this. You...me..." he pulled out the knife, "together-" and drove it into Sherlock's chest, "forever."

Pain built around the knife wound, but the injury itself was utterly numb. Sherlock saw blackness pressing at the edges of his vision and stumbled, grabbing onto Moriarty's suit. The criminal nearly collapsed, but managed to twist as they fell so he dropped into the armchair, one of the detective's hands around the back of his neck, the other over his heart, pressing into his chest.

"Sherlock," Jim breathed. He found the energy somehow to move Sherlock sideways so he could lean over him, cupping the back of his head.

"Jim," he whispered in answer. Moriarty moved in closer and Sherlock pulled him into a kiss, wishing the taste of his lips would erase everything else.

"You _need_ me," Jim said, moving away. Sherlock wasn't going to waste his last breaths on pointless denial.

"I do," he answered.

"I do," Jim parroted in a half-mocking echo of wedding vows.

_Till death do us part._

He kissed Jim one last time and felt his life slipping away like the dregs of sand in a time glass.

"I love you."

 

"Sherlock!"

John glared at his half-awake flatmate. "Lestrade wanted us at the Yard twenty minutes ago! How come you're still asleep?"

"I'm awake," he mumbled, sitting up.

"Whatever you say. Just get dressed fast."

 

_A soft intake of breath escapes Jim._

_"I can distract you," he offers, the starless night of his eyes seeming to glimmer. He could. Offer something different. The high better than cocaine or heroine. The adrenaline rush that came with his games._

 

They did make it to the Yard in time, where Lestrade presented them with a fascinating case - a nine at least. Yet Sherlock couldn't focus. He was aware of John's concerned glances every time he tailed off and did his best to ignore them. A distraction.

"You all right?" John asked once they escaped the suffocating closeness of Lestrade's office. "You seem a bit off."

"I'm perfectly fine, John," he lied fluently. But the mistruth didn't hold up when Mycroft made a surprise visit to their flat, claiming that a matter of 'national significance' had come up and it was imperative he come with him.

 

_"They're all so boring," Jim says lazily, weaving his fingers through the dark curls._

_"You should have more respect for people who provide you with your entertainment," Sherlock lectures, but his heart isn't in it. Jim trails his fingertips down over his ribcage, into the dip of his waist, over the hipbone._

_"You provide my entertainment."_

 

By the time he'd gotten rid of Mycroft, he was fed up. Fed up with the cases, with his flatmate, with his brother, with the whole damned world. So he pulled on his coat and scarf, turning the collar up, and walked.

He ended up by the Thames, of course, watching the muddy grey water swirl against the banks. On the other side he could see the London Eye turning slowly, the pods bathed in a wash of orange light. They'd spent all day at the Yard and the sunset was burning away the dusk with a river of blood-red tainted yellow at the edges, the colours bleeding into each other like ink blossoming in water.

 

_"You love me."_

 

"Hello," Moriarty drawled, propping his elbows on the concrete block that separated them from the river.

"Hello."

"Have you decided to take me up on my offer yet?" he asked, looking at him. Sherlock gazed back and saw the sunset glow across his face.

"I am not here to join you."

"What, then?"

He said nothing, instead staring out across the estuary. He could feel Moriarty watching him like a snake fixed on its prey.

"Oh, I see. Bored, aren't you?"

He held his silence, not bothering to confirm or deny it. The criminal always came up with the right answer, anyway. Two sides of a coin, they were.

"I suppose you don't want me to teach you how to kill?" he pouted. Sherlock shook his head mutely. "Shame. it would have been _beautiful_ to see you with hands covered in blood."

"I want... something else. A proper distraction."

He turned his head to look at Moriarty and for a long time they stayed like that, just watching each other.

"He hit me."

"Who?"

"John." He could feel the rage seeping out of Jim. "He had every right."

"He had no right."

"I killed his wife."

"No." He looked away again, out over the water. The sun was sinking down slowly. "Sherlock, the politician bitch killed his wife. You couldn't have done anything."

"I could-"

"What? Taken a bullet?" Jim laughed dully. "Sherlock, if you see a gun, you are not required to step in front of it to be a friend. You are not required to save people from death as a payment of being loved."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm you, remember? You have a choice with me. Walk away or find a distraction."

"I want a distraction."

"Good choice," Jim said quietly, and pressed his lips gently against Sherlock's. It was nothing like in his dreams, but chaste and careful.

When Moriarty pulled back, there was a challenge in his eyes. Sherlock smirked and flagged down a taxi.

 

"Sherlock," Jim said, breathing fast. The detective tilted his head questioningly. "There's a line here."

"I know," he murmured. "But I think we're past that now."

Jim smiled, a fleeting little grin, and kissed him back properly.

 

**Later**

 

_"Was that enough of a distraction?" Jim asks. The corners of Sherlock's mouth tug upwards._

_"It'll do for now."_

_He studies the depths of those black eyes and wonders what strange magnetism drove him here. Brought him to Moriarty, time and time again._

 


	2. you got me baby

"I don't know what's up with you lately!" John snapped. Sherlock was in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin, gazing into the near distance. "Sherlock!"

The detective got up and walked to the kitchen, lips in a thin line. John watched him turn around and rest on the table with frustration bordering on incredulity.

"Are you even going to answer me?" he growled, and made a sudden movement-

And Sherlock _flinched._

He fucking flinched.

John froze. 

The detective felt nausea spiral up inside him at the flash of memory that assaulted his mind, quick and brutal and sudden, and he buried it away in his mind palace, but he can't hide his reaction. Because the last time John moved like that, it ended with him bloodied and broken on the floor. He knew his friend remembered as well.

"Sherlock..." he began, pointlessly. There was nothing he could say.

 

_"Of course I love you. You're my worse half."_

_"Oh, you know how to pay a man compliments."_

_"I try."_

 

Sherlock got his coat and wrapped his scarf around his neck, and walked out.

It's quite dark and the air is crisp and still. People moved wrapped in their own lives and daydreams, striding past him, and he was grateful for his invisibility. Here he was no more than a ghost in the shadows.

He thought about the cocaine and the heroin and the high it can give him: a few hours off his head in a strange twisted heaven where he is just another wasted druggie, just another washed-up piece of human flotsam and jetsam among the others. He bought a cheap tea from a vendor and thought about his options. Of course after a while he'll end up thinking himself into a den, but...

The 'but' arrived ten minutes later. He looks crushingly stunning in the greasy light of the streetlamps.

"Do you have a tracker on me?" Sherlock asked. He sat beside him.

"Would you object if I did, love?" he answered. He knew Jim's voice so well, the smooth honey dripping from the poisonous words, the languid lazy drawl. "Planning to shoot up somewhere?"

"Would you object if I did, _love_?"

The criminal laughed quietly.

"I think I'm breaking."

"Is it him?" Jim questioned, but it's not much of a question. Sherlock ignored the possessive, angry undercurrent.

"I... have not been particularly attentive lately. It must infuriate him, but he was talking, and he moved fast, and..." He paused. "He won't hurt me."

"He did, Sherlock. He was angry and he took it out on you."

"He was grieving."

Jim looked at him intently and Sherlock looked back into the dark pools of night.

"He might have been grieving. He might have been angry. But that does not ever, in any world, make physically injuring you acceptable. He's no angel."

"He is a better man than me."

"Is he?"

Sherlock looked away, back out to the street. "What do you know?"

Jim opened up his phone wordlessly and handed it over.

It took Sherlock a minute to understand what he was seeing. Texts between John and another woman, texts that could easily be construed as flirting. Texts that dated to when to when Mary was alive. Messages in the dead of night, when his wife would be sleeping beside him, but he wouldn't be sleeping with her, he'd be texting another woman, another woman that- that-

Seeing someone anew is strange. It makes you turn over all your previous perceptions and examine them minutely, wondering if you saw it wrong. And, hell, it doesn't matter how well you knew that person. Suddenly they're like a stranger.

"I'll be by the riverbank tonight, when you believe me," Jim said, and walked away.

 

_Jim's toned and lean. Sherlock might have the height advantage, but Jim's probably got the edge in strength._

_He doesn't use it, though._

_He's gentle, surprisingly so, nothing like how Sherlock imagined. He makes Sherlock choose a safeword and ensures he feels comfortable and safe throughout, makes sure he's enjoying it just as much as he is and isn't overloaded. It's been so long since anyone looked past his façade of unfeeling robot instantly and easily._

_And it's not one-sided, Jim lets him see him vulnerable, too._

 

"You texted another woman."

John looked up from the newspaper.

"What?"

"When you were married to Mary. You cheated on her within months of marriage with someone you barely knew."

He wanted to throw the phone, but he put it down carefully, fingers almost shaking with the need to throw it at a wall. John picked it up and Sherlock didn't need a degree in psychology to read his face.

"How-" He stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again. "How did you get this?"

"That is what you want to know?" Sherlock asked incredulously. He was hurt and angry, so angry, angry that he didn't see it before, angry John is not who he is supposed to be, angry that this man, who cheated on his wife, hit him. Had the nerve to act like he had the moral high ground.

"She loved you," he said. John's throat bobbed as he swallowed.

"I know."

"I love you. Not like her, though. As a friend."

"I know."

"You cheated on her."

"Sherlock, it was just texts. I never even slept with her. I ended it, anyway, and quickly."

"Because you worked out you were married? Good for you." John's face contorted and Sherlock saw rage, the same kind of rage that he felt. Good.

"You can't act like you're any better! You killed my wife. You don't even feel anything, anyway. You're just a computer who doesn't understand human emotion!"

That hurt. Sherlock glanced away. He might not be good with emotion, but that didn't mean he can't feel it. It just meant... a word he hasn't used in a long time.

"I struggle with expressing emotions. You know I feel."

John opened his mouth. And Sherlock understood in a split second what he's going to say, and understood it was going to cut him to the core.

"Besides, you parade around all the time, acting like you're so special, when actually it's just a disability."

"What is?" He needed him to say it.

"Your goddamn attitude ruined your life! You only fixate on what interests you, and you neglect everything else? Ever wondered why you don't have any friends or girlfriends? Because you're a smart-arse know-it-all who can't even walk into a room without upsetting people!"

He walked out.

 

Jim met him and Sherlock handed his phone back. The brown river flowed on by them.

"Did he hurt you?" Jim asked sharply.

"No."

"Did he hurt you?"

The second question was not about physical abuse.

"Yes."

He felt simmering rage pulse off Moriarty. It was barely restrained, like a leashed tiger prowling back and forth.

"You can move in with me."

"What?"

"John Watson," Jim said slowly, "can hurt people in a way even I am still learning about."

 

_He knows it won't last. It can't. Put the two of them together, let them find common ground, and..._

_They'd destroy the world if the other was hurt. It's the kind of compatibility people are never meant to find, and wars have been started over less. He wonders what Mycroft would do to Jim if he found out._

_"You're not still thinking about your brother, are you?" he asks, amusement glinting in the calm at the core of him. Maybe that's why Sherlock is drawn to him, his eventual eternal calm, the balm for an aching, racing mind moving faster than light. The peace._

_"Not at all."_

 

"He is a good man," Sherlock repeated. "He's just... lost."

"Is he?"

The detective sensed Moriarty was growing frustrated and leant in to kiss him. Jim responded possessively, territorially, tongue tracing along his lips.

"My place," Jim said with a commanding undertone, even though they both knew he was just playing the game. trying to maintain an illusion of control. Sherlock smiled against his lips.

 

**Later**

 

He's sitting in an armchair, Jim perched on the edge. The criminal runs his thumb over his lips gently, a dark intensity in his face. Sherlock smiles.

"Still eager?" he asks, sliding a hand around his waist.

"Do you want to go and blow up Parliament instead?" Jim questions silkily. Sherlock actually grins and pulls him down for a quick kiss.

"How have you survived this long?"

"Dumb luck and a deal with the Devil," he purrs.

The detective traces his lips along Jim's neck and up to his ear. He bit down lightly on his earlobe and murmured,

"I hope he doesn't expect you any time soon."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on my bullshit, validate me, etc.


	3. cracks in my mirror, cracks in my soul

"I know it's none of my business, Sherlock, but... is everything all right with you and John?"

Lestrade had caught him on his way out of the Yard and insisted he speak to him. Sherlock had held back a sigh. The Detective Inspector may be a good man, but he could barely see the obvious in a case - besides, he was hardly the man for relationship advice. He was divorced already.

"Everything is perfectly fine," he replied crisply, turning up his coat collar. He turned to walk away, but Lestrade was there in front of him.

"Look, mate, if you need something, my door's always open."

"I have no need to flaunt my problems in public."

"So there are problems," he said, frowning. Sherlock didn't know why. It wasn't his concern.

"Graham-"

"It's Greg."

"I have nothing that I wish to discuss. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a case to look into," he said, holding back none of his simmering irritance and impatience. Wisely, Lestrade let him go.

 

_"Did you miss me?"_

_Yes. Yes, yes, yes. He'd missed the venomous games and twisted words and the handsome, handsome man with the sharp Westwood suits. And the clever tongue and restrained power and delicate fingers and toned body._

_"Only a bit."_

_Jim smiles. He knows what it means, of course. Always does._

 

When John pushed the door of the flat open four hours later, the detective was seated in his armchair, feet crossed on the cushions and hands clasped in front of his face. Lestrade was on the sofa, flicking through a small file and looking annoyed. 

"Afternoon," he said. Lestrade responded with a nod. Sherlock didn't even blink to register his existence. "Sulking again?" he asked. It came out harsher than he'd intended.

"Simply wondering why you're back so early."

"I _live_ here," he replied, and damn him for the edge in his voice.

"Usually you stay out late trying your luck with whatever woman's willing to humour you." There's the snap in his tone and Lestrade is getting up to leave, but Sherlock waved him back down and started discussing the details of the case with him like John's not there, which just made his blood boil, the arrogance in the gesture. He clenched his teeth.

"Do you mind?" he hissed.

"Not even remotely," his flatmate replied. The Inspector risked opening his mouth and Sherlock shook his head minutely. Angry beyond belief, but not wanting to fight in front of someone else, John stormed off. He paused just around the corner, though, so he could listen in.

"And you said there's no problems," Lestrade muttered. There was a heartbeat of silence.

"Things are... strained. I believe John hates me." His tone was suddenly weary, and there was the squeak of the sofa which meant that he had stood up.

"Sherlock, mate, he needs time to sort through things. You know he's been having a hard time lately, what with... well, everything. Mary's death. He's probably just not sure where you stand." He hears the soft thud of Sherlock's pacing on the floor. "It'll sort itself out."

"Perhaps you're right. But with Moria-"

Silence.

"Sherlock?"

"Nothing. Don't worry. I just thought I heard..."

And then the detective looks around the corner and saw John and how did he walk that quietly?

"You were listening?"

"What about Moriarty?" John demanded. Lestrade had stood up, but he barely noticed, was focused on Sherlock and his admission and trying to read every emotion that flashed across his face. "What about him? You've been acting weird lately, especially when - when you saw those texts. How did you get those?"

"What texts?" Lestrade asked, confused.

"Is he... _is Jim Moriarty alive?"_

Sherlock looked down for a long, long moment. Then, finally, he said,

"Yes."

"Goddamit, Sherlock," Lestrade said.

"Why didn't you tell me? What were you even _doing_ , trying to find him? Is he your alternative to getting high?"

"John-" the Inspector attempted.

" _Not now,"_ he hissed, with enough fury that the man shut up at last.

"What are you doing with him? Planning your takeover?"

"You have every right to be angry-"

"You're damn right, I have every right. What are you to him? His ally? Friend? More?" Pain flashed across the detective's face at the last word. "You're - you're - _him?_ You're screwing _him_?"

"Well, it's better than cheating on your wife! _She deserved better!"_ Sherlock roared, and then they both remembered. John looked to Lestrade. The detective remained still. John took a breath. Another. The raging fire drained from his veins, leaving behind only shame and humiliation.

"I think I'll leave you two alone," the Inspector said, gathering up his coat and the file. John opened his mouth to say something, anything, deny it, accept it, but nothing came to mind. No lies or truths tripped off his tongue. He was struck dumb, struck numb.

They waited until there was the click of the door and the treads of Lestrade's footsteps down the chairs before either of them moved - Sherlock to his chair, John to the kitchen.

"So it's true," the soldier murmured. "Moriarty's back. And instead of trying to stop him, helping _us,_ you're busy getting him off."

"It's not like that." John snorted disbelievingly. "It's isn't much," Sherlock rectified. "He's different."

"Is he? Is he really? Or are just seeing him differently now he's let you into his bed?"

The detective closed his eyes. Jim had let him into far more than his bed. He'd seen him vulnerable and afraid and wanting, seen the darkest corners of his mind and watched light flourish in him. Nothing was black and white anymore. It was just shades of grey.

"Shades of grey," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

 

"Is it John again, love?"

Sherlock didn't reply. He sat silently with Jim and watched the Thames flow past them and their old bench. He needed that, needed to be close to the dirty lifeblood of the city and to Jim, who calmed his racing, racing mind and stilled his thoughts. A woman walked past them.

"Divorced prematurely, has one child, cat lover, owns a tabby and a black cat. Journalist. Having an affair with her boss in the hope she'll get promoted." Speaking his deductions out loud helped slow his mind.

Jim didn't comment, simply brushed the back of Sherlock's hand with one finger. The detective curled his fingers around the criminal's wrist and pressed into his pulse point, feeling the heartbeat. He could imagine the complex networks of arteries and veins.

"Calm, Sherlock," he said quietly.

"Lestrade knows. Mycroft will soon."

"I suppose you don't want me to kill them?"

"No." Jim stroked over his skin lightly again. Reassurement. Confirmation.

"There's a man on the bench next to us," the criminal said. "Red hair, blue coat."

"Yours?"

"I don't bring babysitters. Certainly not ones that follow me. Your brother knows already, Sherlock, probably from the moment the Inspector left your flat and called him. The only question is how long he will wait before trying to throw me in a dungeon below the Tower."

Slender fingers curled into a fist.

"I can stop him."

 

_Jim has surprisingly soft lips._

_The first time, Sherlock had catalogued it as nearly irrelevant._ _Now, he wa_ _nts to memorise every curve and line on his body, every dip and hollow between his ribs and legs, every gasp or moan. And he moans a lot._

 

"Brother mine, leaving off tormenting me, would you?"

I see no reason to," Mycroft responded tartly. It was clearly going to be one of those conversations. "While I have no problem with you taking up with rabble from the street, this particular man is causing many people too many headaches for you to simply... interact with no consequences."

"Scared of being a laughing stock?"

"Of course. It is every politician's worst fear."

"You're not a politician, you're an overprotective government with a god complex over your brother."

"Mummy always knew you would be the problematic one." Sherlock sighed, loudly and childishly, and ignored Mycroft's gesture towards the only other chair in his office. It was distasteful, the gilt and varnish. He didn't understand how his brother could stand the pomp of high office.

"Leave Jim alone."

"Ah, you're on first-name terms? I cannot imagine he lets many of his pets call him that."

Sherlock glared with all the dislike that came so naturally with Mycroft's presence.

"All I request is for you to feign ignorance, which can't be hard for you. Nobody knows he is alive because he has committed no crime."

"He's committed over five hundred. And those are just the ones directly linked to him."

Sherlock took a deep breath. He was going to have to compromise.

 

When he finally left his brother, he went to the Yard. Lestrade ushered him into his office and locked the door as soon as he saw him.

"Are you all right?"

"What?" That was the last thing he'd expected from the Inspector: a lecture had seemed much more likely.

"John can be a bit... violent sometimes."

"He's fine."

"It was true, then," Lestrade sighed. Sherlock looked away. He already felt guilty for revealing John's secret to the man without permission: it might be a shameful secret, but it was still his secret, and not his to reveal, however angry he may be.

"It was... foolish of me to react like I did-"

"You don't have to explain anything to me," Lestrade interrupted, holding up a hand. "Just... you do know what you're doing, Sherlock? What happens if we bring him in? Who would you stand for?"

"I would stand with my friends," Sherlock said calmly.

"Which side is that again?"

"The one with the least casualties," he answered. "Now, what about the double poisoning?"

 

_Later, he's with Jim again._

_"I should probably go," he murmurs._

_"But you, won't, Sherlock," Jim sings playfully. "I'd be lonely then." The detective rolls his eyes but smiles at his antics. He wants to leave. He should leave._

_And yet still he stays._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reviews are always appreciated!


	4. silver clouds have grey linings

When Sherlock walked back into the flat, John was slumped in his armchair, an empty mug hanging loosely in his fingers. He looked... strange. Like he was bracing for an argument but didn't have the energy to start it.

The detective unwound his scarf and looped it around the coat stand. Then he slid his coat off his shoulders and hung that up, too.

"So Lestrade knows." John's voice was flat.

"He does." Slow words. Careful tone.

"Who else?"

"Nobody." Sherlock paused, wondering whether to bring up Jim, but John hadn't mentioned him yet and he was not in the mood for another fight.

"Except Moriarty." John breathed in and out deeply and Sherlock wanted to move and shout and leave even though he was scared to even twitch a finger in case he provoked a sudden outburst of violence. His ribs were only newly healed.

"Jim is... an independent variable." Not the words he wanted.

 "Is that why you're fucking him?" John asked, and then shook his head. Sherlock moved to his chair and faced his best friend. "No, it's not that. Is that why you love him?"

"I don't love him," Sherlock snapped, even as he realised that straightforward denial might not be the simplest way forward if they were trying to move on. He avoided John's eyes.

 

_Deep, dark eyes. Black eyes. Why is blue romanticised when he can lose himself in billowing clouds of volcanic ash, in nebulous eyes so dark galaxies must reside in them? And soft fingertips and lips bitten red and expensive silken suits. Why bother fighting the desire?_

 

"You always did. Right from the start. Even when he was killing people for entertainment, it was  _your_ entertainment as well. I mean, who can compete with that, huh? He was killing for you even when he didn't have you."

John made it sound as though Sherlock had chosen Jim because of his psychopathic tendacies, instead of in spite of them. He didn't like that, that insinuation that their relationship was dirty and twisted. Well, it was a long way from pure, and yet the gentleness and respect he was treated with was rare enough that he valued it properly, rather than tossing away affection for a new date. He exhaled.

"I loved Mary as well, you know."

"Don't you dare make this about her," John hissed, leaning forward. " _Don't you dare."_

"What would you do?" Sherlock asked. "Would you hit me? Kick me?" Regret flashed across John's eyes, but it was gone too soon, too fast to seem genuine. "I loved her too. What would she say if she knew I was associating with Jim?"

"She'd hate you."

"Really? I always thought she understood the side of the devils. And we certainly understood each other, just as clearly as she did with you, even though she spent so much more time with you than me." A muscle twitched in John's jaw. He'd hit a sore spot. "I think she would have understood."

" _My_ wife would have hated your betrayal." Betrayal. So that was how John thought of it. Like he'd betrayed him. 

Appropriate.

"You betrayed her. She would have hated you too if she knew."

And then John was out of his chair and his hands were pressing down like vices on Sherlock's wrists and he was staring and staring into his dark eyes and seeing the hate and fury and he was afraid of him, so very afraid, but he pretended to be calm and unbothered and his wrists were aching with pain but he would not show it-

"Do not," John breathed, "ever say that again. My wife would not hate me." His cologne pressed in on Sherlock. He was so close to him. 

"She wasn't  _yours._ She never belonged to you."

Breathing speeding up. Hair was falling into his face and he wasn't bothering to move it. He was so very scared of his friend and had never realised it until right now, when he held all the power. Why had he never realised it before now?

"You didn't own her," Sherlock repeated and now, now his wrists were burning and John was absolutely calm which was worse than his anger. How much damage could John do before he could call for help? The thought didn't even register as desperate at first. "Call her Mary. She never belonged to you."

John's fist drew back. The detective shut his eyes.

But the blow never came. Sherlock opened his eyes and saw John stepping back, shaking out his hand, and he felt relieved. He could taste phantom blood in his mouth already, and he swallowed, swallowing the fear. 

John opened his mouth, shut it again, and walked out, grabbing his coat on the way past. Sherlock listened to his footsteps clattering down the stairs, the concerned voice of Mrs Hudson, and the slamming of the door.

Then silence.

 

_"You're so pretty," Jim purrs. Sherlock sighs and taps his bare ribcage._

_"Off. I have a case, you know." The criminal pouts, but backs off, letting Sherlock sit on the edge of the bed. Jim, apparently, has no respect for his work and bites at his neck. "I mean it." He laughs and falls back._

_"A man can try."_

 

An insurmountable time had passed before light steps ascended the stairs. The door swung open quietly and Moriarty observed Sherlock.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello, Jim." He closed his eyes and sighed. It was an easy space between them, not tense and distant like it had been with John. "I feel like I should introduce you to Mrs Hudson at some point to save the sneaking around."

"She already knows me. I think she wants to ask about you and I, but she's easily distracted by Glee."

Sherlock smiled.

"Consistency is important."

"Hmm." Jim crossed the room in a few easy strides and sat in John's chair. Sherlock didn't object. He looked more natural sitting there, anyway. "I never had much affection for ex-soldiers, you know. Too easily... provoked."

"It's not his fault."

"It's not yours," Jim responded instantly and then they just sat there. "He hurt you this time."

Sherlock frowned, and followed his gaze to his own red wrists. The pain came back suddenly, throbbing up his arm. Maybe he'd been too preoccupied to notice it before.

"It doesn't hurt."

Jim stood from his chair and crouched in front of Sherlock in one fluid motion. He took one wrist carefully and examined it, feather-light touches pressing into his pulse point. Sherlock knew what he was doing. He didn't care.

"I'm fine," he said quietly. Jim rose up enough to press his lips to the taller man's gently and Sherlock wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, deepening the kiss. Letting himself go. 

 

_Slim fingers and a clever tongue. Smothered moans and deep kisses._

 

"When will your pet be back?" Jim sighed lazily. 

"Later. Hours, probably. He'll need time to calm down," Sherlock responded, the haze of pleasure that had been obscuring his mind beginning to clear as he thought about the earlier argument.

"Mmm," he muttered. One arm was still curled loosely around Sherlock, and the now-familiar smell of sex hung in the air. It made him feel closed-off, in a secret space only the two of them could inhabit. Jim stretched slowly, like a cat, languorous and unhurried, sprawling carelessly across Sherlock like he was his.

In a way, he was.

Sherlock dropped his head back into the pillow and stared at the ceiling. 

"Don't think," Jim advised, rolling over to lay on Sherlock, pressing quick kisses to the corner of his mouth and jaw. Sherlock captured his mouth properly for a minute before letting him go. Jim's lips hovered over his throat, biting down almost hard enough to hurt, then blowing warm air on it. 

"Jim," he muttered, as his tongue flicked over his Adam's apple.

"What is it,  _darling?"_ He loved to use pet names like a joke, like he was twisting the knife even when he wasn't.

"Can't stay here forever."

"Why not?" the criminal murmured. He traced the indent of a collarbone, indifferent. "You said we have hours."

"Don't want him to find us."

Jim leant on his elbows and studied Sherlock.

"Fuck him," he decided, the profanity startling. He never swore. "If he comes back, I'll just suck your cock in front of him." The detective laughed.

"Is that the diplomatic way of resolving things?"

"It's the easiest, darling."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ???? back again what do you think


	5. don't let go of me

John was regretful and apologetic over the next few days, yet Sherlock knew that some deep rift had been torn in their friendship, some line crossed. Their friendship was turning into something new, and it made him uneasy. Still, he could predict what would happen soon. People always left him.

One surprise, however, was Jim. Regular sex had never been a part of Sherlock's life - it had nothing to do with his work, why would it? - but he found he was beginning to enjoy the experience. They had begun to settle into a routine: Sherlock would arrive at Jim's black door two or three times a week, always late at night, and he would be led upstairs to the four-poster bed, where they could amuse themselves for hours.

This routine and familiarity was how Sherlock could tell something was wrong the moment Jim opened the door one night. He was standing ever so slightly taller than usual, and his gestures as he motioned Sherlock in had a miniscule stiffness, barely noticeable. 

"I have a proposition," Jim said calmly. "Take a seat." His voice had dropped into the tone Sherlock was used to him using in the bedroom, lower and darker than usual. He obeyed, occupying one of the black leather chairs. Jim took the other one, feet sliding under the glass coffee table.

"You have a proposition," Sherlock stated. 

"Are you familiar with BDSM?" Jim watched him for a heartbeat, then continued, "I'm a dom."

"I will not be your slave," Sherlock said immediately. 

"That wasn't my question."

"I am a submissive, if that is what you are asking." He pushed away memories of research, of psychological experiments that had turned up... interesting results. "I assume you are not making idle chatter."

In reply, Jim produced a sheet of paper from his blazer and placed it on the table. Sherlock slid it off the glass and examined it. It displayed Jim's taste for luxury: not the ostentatious pomp his brother favoured, but a subtler style, polished mahogany and black leather chairs and white crisp sheets, and naturally the red, long-stemmed poppies in their crystal vases. Jim's idea of irony.

The paper itself was thick and creamy, and the black text in his trademark swooping handwriting. It was a simple list, and the items nearly made Sherlock's breath catch.

"Cross off  the ones you are not amenable to," Jim said, and slid a fountain pen over the table. 

The first alone was... certainly something. Bondage. Spanking. Sensory deprivation. Sensation play. Orgasm denial. Nothing he would object to.

 

_Jim has Sherlock, and he knows it, both of them do. The knowledge gleams in every predatory smile, in every smirk. Yet he seems to love it, loves using his clever fingers and hot mouth to render Sherlock speechless, thoughtless._

_And that is the beauty they make together. That is their love, slow and considered and silent._

 

"Are these all within your limits?" Sherlock asked. A slow nod.

"Fluids from the digestive system are strictly off limits for me," he said. "Otherwise, I have very few hard limits."

"People really do that," Sherlock murmured. A quirk of Jim's mouth, a flicker of amusement.

The next line had flogging. Suspension bondage. Wax play. Shibari, an unfamiliar term.

"Japanese bondage," Jim explained when he enquired. "A complex system of rope knots."

He looked back down, but left it. Animal play was the first he crossed off, followed by sounding. Breathplay he paused over.

"I assume you know how to restrict airflow safely," he said. Jim inclined his head. 

The next line only had three items on it. Needleplay he crossed off, and moved onto the other two.

Knifeplay and bloodplay.

He shouldn't be surprised, logically. Of course Jim would be interested in edging, but it hadn't actually sunk in until he studied the graceful words, outlined against the white paper. it was simply something he had never thought about in any great detail. He pictured it now though, Jim's steady hand guiding a blade over his throat, tracing the outline of his ribs, and felt a flush of arousal.

Interesting.

"Does blood arouse you?" he said to Jim, who shrugged unhelpfully.

"That's not why I kill, if that is why you're asking. Although my methods are beautiful."

"Your methods."

"My style. Why do you think people come to me to solve their problems, darling?" Sherlock had grown so accustomed to the pet names he didn't so much as blink. "Other people make it messy, ugly,  _ordinary._ I don't, though. I make murder into an art form, so the body is only the final piece. The beauty, Sherlock, the elegance, is in my solution. People like me because my art is stunning. I don't believe death should be so brutal." He leant back and studied the detective. "Blood is... a part of it, of course. Usually I prefer to keep business and pleasure separate."

"Am I different?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

Sherlock gazed into Jim's eyes, refusing to break first. Nebulas bloomed in his irises, billowing clouds of volcanic ash obscuring the emptiness he knew was there. 

He could feel the redness staining his skin. Feel the warmth, smell the rust, taste the salt. He wanted this. He wanted Jim, and his list of suggestions, his slow torture. 

"Yes," he said, and refused to let himself believe any different.

 

_They start off slow. Jim opts to lay the knives aside for now, and instead works slowly over Sherlock, tying elaborate knots and pulling the ropes tight. Shibari, he says. He speaks in Japanese while he works._

_Sherlock decides not to tell him he knows Japanese. Instead, he calls Jim Sir for the first time and watches his face light up, and doesn't think about what Jim tells him when he thinks Sherlock cannot understand._

 

The next day, Sherlock offered an olive branch, of sorts, to John. He brought him to the Yard for the first time in four days, and watched Lestrade nod and attempt to act professionally around a case he could probably solve by himself, if he were determined enough.

"Do you have an alibi for the gardener?" he enquired finally, giving up.

"The gardener? Why would that matter-"

"Because there are traces of soil under the dead man's nails. Given his tendency to mock his servants and look down on the lower class, or what he perceived to be so, it seemed highly unlikely he would bother tending to his garden, especially since it is so well-maintained and artificial he must hire expensive help - expensive help he can apparently not afford to pay, if his bank balance is anything to go by. Check the man's alibi and get a search warrant."

"That was brilliant," John said on their way back, once they were both in a taxi.

"As ever, he sees but does not observe," Sherlock said dryly, and pretended to ignore the silence that hung over them still, heavy and awkward.

 

Once they reached the flat, John paused to exchange a few words with Mrs Hudson while Sherlock went on ahead. He pulled off his coat and scarf off, retrieved his violin, and seated himself cross-legged on his armchair. 

John emerged from the stairs when he was only the first few notes into his latest composition. 

"Hey, mate, can we talk?" he asked. Sherlock paused in his playing.

"What is it?"

"Look, it's about Moriarty," John began hesitantly. "I just... are you safe?"

Sherlock stared at him.

"What?"

"He's a serial killer, Sherlock. More than that, he's a psychopath. I know you think he cares, and maybe, maybe in his own way he does, but you can't know for sure."

"No, I can't," Sherlock said quietly. John looked shocked. He had probably expected denial, another argument. "And he is a killer, and dangerous, and yet he is me. I can trust him, John. I don't know why. I don't understand how. But I can trust him."

 

_"Do you trust me?"_

_"Always, Jim."_

_"Do you love me?"_

_"I wish I didn't."_

_Jim looks up at him from where he is sprawled over Sherlock._

_"Why?" he asks petulantly._

_"One day, you're going to kill me."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is always appreciated :)


	6. lover, this is not love.

"Aren't you scared?" Jim asks. He's tapping a knife in between his fingers without looking, leaving shallow marks in the table.

"For you, me, or the table?"

He smiles and sets aside the knife, Sherlock's eyes drawn to the flash of silver. It's the same flash that had hovered over his pulse point not an hour ago, pressing lightly at first then not so lightly, until a single drop of blood beaded. To have the cold metal so close to his throbbing throat had been exhilarating, one wrong move away from spilling his life on the white bedsheets. He had been so, so afraid - and yet not, at the same time.

"I could tie you up and strangle you and you would let me," he muses eventually, one finger still on the black handle of the knife. "I could bleed you dry and you'd just lay there. Isn't that what everyone wants of their worst enemy? Reduced to a pliable, begging nothingness?"

"I did say you would kill me," Sherlock reminds him, one fist propped against his temple, unbothered by the topic of conversation as he is by the loose sheet that drapes over his lap. It's the only thing that covers him and the bites and bruises peppering his skin are on display to any that may walk in.

"I own you, in a way," his nemesis continues, seemingly oblivious to his interruption. "How willing would you be to show that to everyone?" This time, he glances at Sherlock. Dark eyes meet pale, and Jim's head tilts in a reptilian way. Then he reaches into one of the pockets of his suit, and brings out a collar.

Sherlock's breath catches. It's slim, made of black leather with a silver circle attached to the front. Simple, elegant, visceral in its meaning. "Would you let me destroy you?" Jim asks.

Yes.

"You couldn't if you tried," Sherlock says instead, and those black eyes spark with interest. A challenge, he has learnt, is something that cannot be resisted - a challenge from him, no less.

 

_"Breathe," Jim says. The words float down to him, or maybe up, up to the clouds that obscure his mind, foggy and lust-hazed. Breathe. He sucks a breath in, expels it, and his throat bobs back to meet the blade. He is drifting, drifting, faint and distant, but sharp in his mind is the lust and pain. Pain where the ropes dig in, pleasure-pain-pleasure pricking at his wrists, lust at Jim's face, so lost in ecstasy._

_"I could kill you right now," his nemesis breathes. His lover, his enemy. He would let him._

It's only when he's back at the flat that something begins pressing at the corners of his mind. Something is... wrong.

"You alright, mate?" John asks, frowning in concern at Sherlock when he presses two fingers to the side of his head.

"I'm missing something." The confession drops flat from his lips and John leaves off the tea in the kitchen to move towards him.

"Is this about the case? Because I can call Lestrade back, tell him something's wrong." He interprets the twist of Sherlock's lips correctly. "Not the case. Moriarty?" A jerky nod. Teeth press together.

Then he stands in one swift movement, coat swirling around his legs, and steps over the chair to reach the wall, where notes from their latest case are pinned, string connecting the dots. Revelations are coming now, quick and fast, and they are leaving him icy and cold, stripped of breath.

"It's him," Sherlock breathes, and John moves to stand beside him. "He's- he's doing it."

"Moriarty?" his friend says, and it's not really a question.

"I need a pen," he says. John finds one, tosses it over. Even now, bonds strained by past hurts and bruised memories, they can still move almost as one, the quick steps already anticipated. He uncaps the pen - a marker, that's good - and scribbles out his notes in a few swift movements. "This is wrong. This woman, see her? She was the maid in the gardener's case with the poison. And this apron she's wearing with the marks was hung up by the chair in that old case that had confused me for months. There's the rip right along the hem. And here, the hairpins in her bun? Like the stiletto in the rich woman's heart, and this skirt has mud on it. Mud was how I convicted the murderer two weeks ago, when I was analysing soil samples. Here, right here is a picture of the last case when we were interviewing the suspect." Sherlock grabs the piece of paper, flattens it against the wall. "Right there on the woman's clothes. Not a maid this time, so no apron, but on that dress there's mud along the bottom. Pins in her hair. Her shoes are white and blue trainers. Remind you of anyone?"

"Carl Powers. Are those the modern versions of his shoes?"

"Yes. And look, here, in both they're wearing the same necklace."

"That's a choker," John says, peering at it. "Black, looks like leather - is that some kind of fetish thing, with the silver ring?"

It was the same collar Jim had offered to him. Undoubtedly. The same one he'd clasped around Sherlock's neck with such care, and had unclasped on his request once he was ready to go back to the flat. The idea of having it around his neck now makes him want to vomit.

"She wore it, too," John says, bringing him back to the present. He's elbow-deep in the folder of their older cases, until he pulls out a crumpled picture of a crime scene. Sherlock recognises it immediately. That killing had been brutal, cruel, and the murderer had taken a long time to carve off pieces of her flesh. But around her white throat, untouched and unmarked by blood, was the same collar.

"I need to go," he whispers. Already he's reaching for his scarf, and John turns to face him.

"You're not going alone," he says, in the voice that commands authority wherever he goes. "If you're planning on some kind of take two on the grandiose fake suicide, then forget it right now, OK? I've not been... I've not been who I should be to you, and I am so sorry. But you cannot leave me here alone, not again, while you stroll off to face the big bad wolf."

Sherlock sighed heavily and walked to the wooden table. Two mugs of tea sat there, still hot. "Just sit down for a moment mate, all right?"

"All right," he says eventually, sitting down and pulling his mug towards him. John does the same, cautiously sliding into his seat and sipping at his tea. "I'm sorry."

"That's all right," his friend says, clearly relieved he's not planning on running anywhere, and takes a larger gulp of the liquid.

"No, really. I'm so sorry."

John frowns, then he blinks. Hard. Then he begins to slide off his chair. Sherlock catches him easily before he hits the ground and eases him more gently into a laying position before tipping the tea down the sink. John hadn't even seen him slip the tablet in.

 

_"I might kill you," Jim muses. His lips tilt up at the corners. "Or I might kill someone else, first."_

_Sherlock hadn't gotten the joke._

 

He walks straight in, finding the door unlocked, and up to the bedroom he had begun to think of theirs. The idea is laughable, of course, but he had been desperate, in way, for human contact. John was usually the one for physical affection. Hugs, pats on the shoulder, brushing past him. Small things he had missed recently.

Jim is there, as if he knew Sherlock would find him at exactly that moment. He is still wearing his polished shoes, one knee raised above the other. He does not turn, does not look at Sherlock. The collar is by his side, and one slender finger taps over the silver ring embedded in it.

"Were you trying to entertain me?" Sherlock says. Cold resolution burns low in his stomach.

"No." Jim tips his head towards him, dull black eyes roving over his body. "I only ever do things for myself. My pleasure, my amusement, my entertainment. And I was wondering how long it would take you to work out what was going on. What a disappointment you turned out to be. Three months? I've had people with an IQ below one hundred figure it out faster than you."

There was an edge in his tone, a riling, gauging edge. He was seeing just how far exactly he could push before Sherlock snapped.

"Come on, honey," and he shifts towards Sherlock, trying for coy. "slips "It was fun while it lasted, wasn't it?"

"So it's over."

"Unless you feel like getting on your knees and begging," Jim offers.

"No," Sherlock decides. "I don't." His lover clicks his tongue, obviously disappointed, and expecting... something. A shouting match? Like they could ever sway the other. Like they would ever want to. A hard, angry fuck, maybe.

He didn't feel like either of those.

So the detective just sits down next to Jim, swinging his legs up onto the bed so they lay alongside his. They stare out the window together, across busy, bustling London. Their city, undoubtedly, Jim's just as much of Sherlock's. One king of its seedy underbelly, of the crawling, filthy, desperate people that populated it, and one holding sway over the law that hunted the other. From here, though, they can see the tops of rooftops. St. Bart's rears in the distance, tall and proud, and it seemed so strange that they should sit together so close to the building that had seen the apparent death of one and the downfall of the other.

"Were you more angry that I was trying to entertain you, or that John was right?" Jim asks, once some time has passed.

"I was angry," Sherlock says, "because you were not what I wanted you to be. I thought I could... temper you. Calm you down, stop some killings."

"Darling. Your life runs on killings, and on me being me."

Sherlock contemplates that. Jim holds up the collar in offer, and he chuckles at the nerve.

"No. And you can't act like you'd be happy if I accepted it, anyway. You'd probably blow your brains out the next morning."

"You're good," his enemy says.

"You're not so bad," he replies. They both smile for a moment.

_"Come on, Sherl," Jim whispers, those fingers doing oh-so-sinful things to him. "Come for me."_

_And in that second, that heartbeat, that lifetime, Sherlock experiences everything._

_The shift of fingertips over his skin. Warm breath ghosting close to his neck. The heat of lust. The warmth, deeper and more secure, of feeling wanted, needed, used. The silence of his racing mind._

_Peace._

 

The sun begins to dip towards the horizon. It was beginning to bleed red and gold the first time they kissed, slipping into the Thames at the press of their lips.

"Do you still want to kill me?" Jim questions. Sherlock is surprised, at first, and then not.

"Not really."

"Can I kiss you?"

"Just because I don't want to kill you any more doesn't mean you can kiss me," he points out, and Jim sighs. They sit there side by side for a little while longer.

"If I asked you to come away with me what would you say? Just us. We can move to Paris, Milan, whatever. Just the two of us. Start again."

Jim looks at him so intently and for such a long time Sherlock actually wonders if he will. But then his lips move, and he knows soul-deep what the answer will be before it is out of his mouth. A crushing no. Simple and brutal.

"Outside this place, we are enemies again," Jim says. "Until one of us dies. That can't be changed."

"I know."

"But," and he turns to look at the detective, properly, for the first time, "in here we are whatever we want to be. We can be stupid. We can be geniuses. We can fuck, and talk, and be ourselves. I can cut scars into you, and you can stop pretending you don't love it. I can lay trails for the police, watch them dance, and you can lay trails for my men and watch them fall."

"So romantic," Sherlock says in a monotone. Jim produces a knife from the pocket of his suit and lays it between them, over the collar.

"I don't do romance, darling. I do murder. If you want I can kill you and then with your dying breath you can stab me. Right here, right now. We can burn in Hell together."

"Or?"

"Or you don't kill me. Or we can play our games. We can amuse each other for ever, can't we?"

Sherlock stares deep into his onyx eyes. Black as night. Flat and lifeless.

"We can," he agrees, and Jim exhales a shuddering breath. Then he reaches for the collar and picks it up, weighing it in his hands. The leather is soft, but not old. It feels new and familiar all at once. He puts it down.

The sun is dying now, last beams of molten gold caressing Jim's face. He looks so beautiful.

"Where's the gun?" he asks. Jim closes his eyes slowly before he reaches underneath the sheets and brings it out. A British Army Browning L9A1, and he wants to laugh. "When were you planning to kill me?"

"About five minutes ago," his lover sighs. "But you're just too cute, you know?"

Sherlock laughs as the last golden beams disappear over the horizon. Laughs as he presses a kiss to Jim's lips, takes the gun from his unresisting hand, and slips it into his pocket.

"I'll see you soon," he says.

And then there is a stabbing pain.

He falls back off the bed on to the floor, the red carpet coming up to meet him, and sees in Jim's hand the knife, the blade now covered in blood. There's blood, too, on his slender fingers.

"You'll survive," Jim says. "I've already told my men to call an ambulance. But you understand how it is."

He takes the gun from Sherlock's possession and steps over him as if to leave. At the last moment, though, he turns back, crouches.

"You and me," he says, voice low and deep and dark. "We're not done yet."

He kisses Sherlock hard, maybe for the last time, and then he does stand up and step over his body.

"See you soon," Moriarty says.

Sherlock hears his steps fade away, and smiles as darkness comes up to embrace him.

 

 

 

_A soft intake of breath escapes Jim._

_"I can distract you," he offers, the starless night of his eyes seeming to glimmer. He could. Offer something different. The high better than cocaine or heroine. The adrenaline rush that came with his games. So Sherlock nods, once, slowly, and Moriarty smiles a dark, secret smile before he turns to hail a cab. They arrive at a house modern but stylish near the centre of London, and Jim holds the door open for him._

 

_Jim's toned and lean. Sherlock might have the height advantage, but Jim's probably got the edge in strength._

_He doesn't use it, though._

_He's gentle, surprisingly so, nothing like how Sherlock imagined. He makes Sherlock choose a safeword and ensures he feels comfortable and safe throughout, makes sure he's enjoying it just as much as he is and isn't overloaded. It's been so long since anyone looked past his façade of unfeeling robot instantly and easily._

_And it's not one-sided, Jim lets him see him vulnerable, too._

_"Did you miss me?" he whispers, kissing his way down the detective's body._

_Yes. Yes, yes, yes. He'd missed the venomous games and twisted words and the handsome, handsome man with the sharp Westwood suits. And the clever tongue and restrained power and delicate fingers and toned body._

_"Only a bit."_

_Jim smiles. He knows what it means, of course. Always does._ _But he says nothing, letting Sherlock surrender to slim fingers and a clever tongue. Smothered moans and deep kisses, teasing and teasing but not letting him come, pulling away at the last minute._

_Jim has Sherlock, and he knows it, both of them do. The knowledge gleams in every predatory smile, in every smirk. Yet he seems to love it, loves using his clever fingers and hot mouth to render Sherlock speechless, thoughtless._

_And that is the beauty they make together. That is their love, slow and considered and silent._

_Jim opts to lay the knives aside for now, and instead works slowly over Sherlock, tying elaborate knots and pulling the ropes tight. Shibari, he says. He speaks in Japanese while he works._

_Sherlock decides not to tell him he knows Japanese. Instead, he calls Jim Sir for the first time and watches his face light up, and doesn't think about what Jim tells him when he thinks Sherlock cannot understand._

_When he's done, he pulls back to sit on his haunches to admire his work. Sherlock's wrists are tied to his ankles, and over his body ropes dig in, elaborate knots covering his pale skin, obscuring not one of the bites and bruises. Then he smiles in the way a predator might look at hopelessly trapped prey._ _At least he seems satisfied now, because Sherlock_ _is drifting on a cloud far above his body. Subspace, he knows logically, but the ecstasy he burns with, the lust, keeps most logic at bay._

_And Jim is upping the ante now, two fingers working their way into him as his mouth ravages the detective's, the other hand working his leaking cock._

_"Come on, Sherl," Jim whispers, those fingers doing oh-so-sinful things to him. "Come for me."_

_And in that second, that heartbeat, that lifetime, Sherlock experiences everything._

_The shift of fingertips over his skin. Warm breath ghosting close to his neck. The heat of lust. The warmth, deeper and more secure, of feeling wanted, needed, used. The silence of his racing mind._

_Peace._

 

_"Do you trust me?" his enemy asks later. There are blood-red marks on him, a testament to the ropes which lay tossed over the side of the bed for now._

_"Always, Jim."_

_"Do you love me?"_

_"I wish I didn't."_

_Jim looks up at him from where he is sprawled over Sherlock._

_"Why?" he asks petulantly._

_"One day, you're going to kill me."_

  _I might kill you," Jim muses. His lips tilt up at the corners. "Or I might kill someone else, first."_

_Sherlock hadn't gotten the joke._

_"You do love me, then," Jim says, disregarding the joke entirely now._

_"Of course I love you. You're my worse half."_

_"Oh, you know how to pay a man compliments."_

_"I try."_

_He knows it won't last. It can't. Put the two of them together, let them find common ground, and..._

_They'd destroy the world if the other was hurt. It's the kind of compatibility people are never meant to find, and wars have been started over less. He wonders what Mycroft would do to Jim if he found out._

_"You're not still thinking about your brother, are you?" he asks, amusement glinting in the calm at the core of him. Maybe that's why Sherlock is drawn to him, his eventual eternal calm, the balm for an aching, racing mind moving faster than light. The peace._

_"Not at all."_

_"They're all so boring," Jim says lazily, weaving his fingers through the dark curls._

_"You should have more respect for people who provide you with your entertainment," Sherlock lectures, but his heart isn't in it. Jim trails his fingertips down over his ribcage, into the dip of his waist, over the hipbone._

_"You provide my entertainment."_

_"Was that enough of a distraction?" Jim asks. The corners of Sherlock's mouth tug upwards._

_"It'll do for now."_

_Deep, dark eyes. Black eyes. Why is blue romanticised when he can lose himself in billowing clouds of volcanic ash, in nebulous eyes so dark galaxies must reside in them? And soft fingertips and lips bitten red and expensive silken suits. Why bother fighting the desire?_

 

_Later, he's with Jim again._

  _"You're so pretty," Jim purrs. Sherlock sighs and taps his bare ribcage._

_"Off. I have a case, you know." The criminal pouts, but backs off, letting Sherlock sit on the edge of the bed. Jim, apparently, has no respect for his work and bites at his neck. "I mean it." He laughs and falls back._

_"A man can try."_

_"I should probably go," he murmurs._

_"But you, won't, Sherlock," Jim sings playfully. "I'd be lonely then." The detective rolls his eyes but smiles at his antics. He wants to leave. He should leave._

_And yet still he stays._

_Jim has surprisingly soft lips._

_The first time, Sherlock had catalogued it as nearly irrelevant._ _Now, he wa_ _nts to memorise every curve and line on his body, every dip and hollow between his ribs and legs, every gasp or moan. And he moans a lot._

_"Breathe," Jim says. The words float down to him, or maybe up, up to the clouds that obscure his mind, foggy and lust-hazed. Breathe. He sucks a breath in, expels it, and his throat bobs back to meet the blade. He is drifting, drifting, faint and distant, but sharp in his mind is the lust and pain. Pain where the ropes dig in, pleasure-pain-pleasure pricking at his wrists, lust at Jim's face, so lost in ecstasy._

_"I could kill you right now," his nemesis breathes. His lover, his enemy. He would let him._

_He studies the depths of those black eyes and wonders what strange magnetism drove him here. Brought him to Moriarty, time and time again._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :) I hope you enjoyed x


End file.
